There was no love for ReRave or its follow-up because I hadn’t been aware of it. I should have been—the original game launched in 2011 and has since gotten a follow-up and been made into arcade machines—but it slipped through the cracks.

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The situation was quickly remedied via free iTunes download. I immediately liked what I saw—a large music library featuring tons of free songs from artists I’m not familiar with but in styles I really dig. The rhythm-tapping gameplay ranges from simple to insane, depending on the difficulty chosen. Easy to pick up, difficult to master, that sort of thing.

I chose a song, picked my difficulty and pushed start.

What the hell? Ten seconds of load time, with text indicating I could “Add EXTENDED ACCESS for FAST LOAD.”

No. Just no. This is not a thing we do.

I could handle ads. I understand that licensing music for a rhythm game can cost money (though I imagine some more obscure artists give their songs freely for the exposure). I have no problem with some of the songs being premium and requiring spending points with purchased currency to play. Hell, I’d even be fine with having a limited number of plays tied to an energy meter with the option to purchase quick refills—well, I’d hate it, but not as much as this.

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What the developers are telling me with this countdown timer and that message is that these songs could load faster, but they don’t. They game is intentionally crippled in a completely obnoxious way, pending payment.

I told the developers via Twitter that I felt paying for faster load times was insane.

Yes, it is unreasonable. Having 60 percent of the game initially unlocked is pretty amazing, and Extended Access—a $20 purchase—does give limited access to the entire music library, exclusive content and the “Wild” difficulty level.

But that’s not what’s being advertised every time I start a song and wait.

Some might say “But it’s only ten seconds”, to which I say “Then why bother?” If every song simply had a ten second loading screen with a link to the artists’ web presence on it, I would simply have taken it for a courtesy to the performer. That would be reasonable. This is not.

What makes this all so frustrating is ReRave Plus is exactly my sort of game.